A few weeks ago, Chris Bowen, Labor’s Energy Minister, said that “In all my discussions with my international colleagues, energy and climate, there isn’t one country in the world that said: ‘You know what this fuel crisis reminds us? We need more fossil fuels’. That conversation is not being had anywhere around the world”.
He said this while Australia’s Prime Minister was travelling the world desperately asking other countries to send us “fossil fuels”.
Tony Blair called on the UK Government to lift its ban on drilling for oil in the North Sea.
The Queensland Premier has been asking for the Federal Government to help drill for oil in western Queensland, where a new discovery has been made.
Whatever country Chris Bowen inhabits, it is not on planet Earth.
New data from the International Energy Agency this week confirmed what is happening in the real world. Last year, fossil fuels accounted for 80 per cent of global energy demand, the same amount as in 2024. Indeed, the share of energy demand met by coal, oil and gas has barely changed in 50 years.
Last year, demand for coal, oil and gas continued to rise. Global coal demand increased by 30 million tonnes, three times the annual output of the Adani Carmichael coal mine.
Chris Bowen gets a couple of things right, but he draws the wrong conclusions from them. Renewable energy, especially solar, is growing strongly, but it remains just 8 per cent of global energy demand. The story of all energy “transitions” in history is clear. There are not really transitions from one energy source to another. There are only energy additions.
New energy sources don’t replace others; they just help contribute to the overall growth in energy demand.
The other thing Chris Bowen gets right is that the world is going through a massive electrification process. Demand for electricity is growing at double the pace of other energy sources. This is happening for three reasons.
First, as poorer countries get richer, they convert polluting ways of creating energy – like unflued stoves in homes and small businesses – to electricity. Note that the electricity from modern coal-fired power stations is much cleaner than that from rudimentary stoves and boilers.
Second, electric cars are converting transport from oil sources to electric ones. The scale of this must be put in context, however. Even if Australia’s entire car fleet was converted to EVs, that would only reduce our oil demand by 25 per cent.
Third, data centres are massive users of electricity. The growth in electricity demand from data centres was greater than that of electric cars last year.
Many, however, draw the wrong conclusions from this shift to electricity. The electricity demand increases are so large that all forms of electricity production will increase, including coal. Indeed, some of the increases, like data centres, won’t be able to be met from renewable energy because data centres need the power to be stable all the time, something renewable energy cannot do.
If Australia really wants to take advantage of the age of electricity, we need to remove all our bans on electricity generation. That will mean building more coal, gas and nuclear fired power stations, not just renewables.
Hon Matt Canavan
Leader of the Nationals
LNP Senator for QLD
